In All the Old Familiar Places
by Prophet of Doom
Summary: He runs into her in some tiny town in Kansas. Damon/Katherine: and so we meet again...


**A/N: **Written for the tvdfic_exchange, with the prompt: _and so we meet again..._

* * *

**In All the Old Familiar Places**

He runs into her in some tiny town in Kansas, a cautionary tale of a place, all quaint storefronts, hand-painted signs, and empty streets. He'd only stopped for a drink and a chance to stretch his legs. He'd been on the road for three days, the sole evidence of his four months at Emory stuffed unceremoniously in a box in his trunk (his textbook from _The Making of Modern Europe_, a pink megaphone from the Alpha Delta Pi crush party, and the laser pointer he'd "borrowed" from his annoying as fuck poetry TA who didn't know jack about Byron). He strolls into what looks to be the only bar in this one-street hamlet, and there she is, lounging on a bar stool like temptation come to town, chatting coyly with some farmer or shopkeeper or pastor who has no idea what he's in for. Damon freezes in the doorway, caught between the instinct to go to her and the wild desire to flee to his car and keep driving til he hits the coast, but then her head tilts in sudden awareness, and the chance has passed.

She doesn't look toward him, but the slow upward curve of her lips might as well be a lasso pulling him in. He watches her dismiss the undoubtedly married but nonetheless smitten man next to her as he approaches, and he takes the poor fool's vacated seat with all the casual swagger he can muster. He reaches over the bar to grasp a bottle of whatever passes for scotch in this place, pops the spout off, and takes a swig before turning to her.

"Katherine. What are you doing in Kansas?"

She grins and leans into him. "I clicked my heels together three times and chanted 'there's no place like home.'"

He snorts, a dry chortle. "More like the Wicked Witch of the West owes you a favor."

She throws her head back as she laughs, her hair cascading down in impeccably tousled curls. She looks back at him, her eyes bright with amusement. "Come now, Damon. You know my witches are made of sterner stuff. Strictly waterproof."

He looks down at his scotch and shakes his head, his mouth twisting into a wry grimace. "Of course."

There is a moment's pause as she takes a sip of her wine, and he watches the movement out of the corner of his eye. She seems relaxed, comfortable, at home. He knows better than to believe the illusion.

"What are you really doing here, Katherine?"

She arches one perfectly shaped eyebrow at him. "Can't I just be visiting some friends, Damon?"

"You don't have any friends."

She nods in consideration. "Perhaps not. But I have you."

For a moment, he's silent, quiet fury slowly unfurling in his chest. Finally, he bites out, "You don't have me, Katherine." But the jab does nothing to quell this black feeling growing inside him, because he knows she can see it, read the calculation on his face, the quick understanding that he could make this story better, make the scene so much stronger with a simple continuation of the dialogue: _You never had me_. But Damon has never liked to lie. And Katherine knows.

He waits for the blow, waits for her to twist her claws into him the way only she can. But she merely takes another sip of wine. He wonders if she has some greater hurt envisioned for him, a superior plan that would make it somehow worthwhile for her to let go of this moment.

Or perhaps it's mercy.

He doesn't dwell on that thought.

Several hours later, he's run through most of the dark liquors in the well and half of the top shelf too, and even she is bestowing her smiles more freely on the patrons of Kansas's dullest bar under the influence of several bottles of wine and the occasional Cosmopolitan. They've managed to converse for hours without sharing any actual information about either of their doings of late, and all around it's been a surprisingly pleasant afternoon. The sun is setting, and he's thinking about calling one of the townspeople over and inquiring after some undoubtedly charming but improperly sanitized B&B to stay in for the night. But then Katherine is tugging him out the back door and into the alley and she is pressing him against the brick wall (even the alleys of this fucking town are quaint) and kissing him.

It doesn't even occur to him to resist. Call it the alcohol, or weariness from traveling, or even an odd sense of gratitude for her earlier kindness, but all he knows is that Katherine is kissing him, and he is kissing her back.

She's shoving her tongue in his mouth and working his belt buckle, and then with a rush of cool air she's gone. He blinks in surprise, but she's only standing a few feet away, looking flushed and excited and painfully beautiful.

"Wha-" he stammers, but she hushes him and grabs his hand.

"Come with me," she murmurs, her voice low and eager and utterly captivating. Then she takes off running, across the street, through the buildings, into the fields neatly organized into rows. He follows, running after her – running _with_ her. It isn't chasing if she's holding his hand.

She stops at some unremarkable spot that looks much like every other point in the field, but it must mean something to her, because she twirls in delight and tosses her head back to laugh at the stars. He stares at her, remembering now, remembering all of it. It's all been so dire lately, their lives always in such immediate peril, that he hasn't seen this – the way she can _enjoy_ herself. Katherine has always known how to have fun. That's one of the best things he ever learned from her.

She looks down from the sky and refocuses her gaze on him, and if the stars had received the same 'come-hither' look she's currently aiming at him, he wonders that they haven't come crashing down to Earth yet. Then she's pulling him down between the rows of whatever crops they're growing here in Hicksville, Population: Why, and he settles between her legs and meets her lips again.

Afterwards, there's blood under her nails and finger-shaped bruises on her hips, and he's pulling leaves out of his hair and trying to brush the dirt stains off his jeans (a futile effort). She reaches over to rub a smear of lipstick off his neck, breaking him out of his concentration. He stands up and almost offers her a hand, but she seems quite content to lie out on the ground like a Grande Odalisque, predictably proud of her state of undress. He looks down at her, wishing he had something brilliant to say, some dramatic line that will echo in her ears as he fades off into the horizon. But it's been a strange day, and he has no energy left for that perfect line before the credits roll. He knows this is just a 'to be continued…' anyway.

"I'll be seeing you, Katherine."

She gives a half-shrug and a non-committal noise. "Maybe."

He looks at her for one last second, taking in the whole tableau, and then he turns and walks back to his car. He doesn't feel like sleeping anymore – he thinks he'd like to drive all night, keep driving until the world around him looks like someplace new. He feels odd, restless, a bit jumpy. He can't place why until he's 10 miles out and far away from anything but crops and the open air. Then he realizes with a start that this was the first time he'd actually been with Katherine since 1864. Since he was _human_. The fact that he hadn't noticed it before, hadn't marked the occasion with any show of ceremony, well…that was a clearer indication than he'd had for a century and a half that he'd changed. He guns the engine, breathing in a deep lungful of nighttime air. He'll keep driving til he sees the sun.

But he thinks the world might already be new.

* * *

She calls him up on a Thursday, her feet propped up on the vanity table and her fingers idly tangling in the phone cord. It takes him four rings to pick up.

"Hello?"

He sounds so normal, like he could be any young guy answering a call on his way to work. She wonders if he could ever have been just that.

"Want to help me out with something?"

A sigh is her next greeting. Much better.

"Katherine."

"Hello, lover. So how about it?"

"Why should I help you?" He fires back, sounding more curious than scornful.

"Come on, Damon, it could be fun." She pitches her voice into a low purr. "Didn't we have fun last time?"

She can practically hear his smile of begrudging affection through the phone line. A pause while he considers fighting himself, then: "What do you need?"

Her lips stretch into a triumphant smirk. "Can you be in Vancouver by 10PM?"

"Are you actually asking?"

She glances at the map on the vanity, where her right pointer finger is making lazy circles around Portland, Oregon.

"See you tonight, Damon."

She hangs up.

/\/\/\

He shows up at 10:04, his four minutes of rebellion a gift she'll allow him this one time. He saunters up to the address she texted him to find her sitting on the ledge outside the apartment building, legs crossed nonchalantly like she belongs here.

"Good to see you, Damon."

He tilts his head and squints his eyes in consideration before determining, "It's good to see you too, Katherine."

"Wanna help me kill a shaman?"

"Sure, why not."

She leads him upstairs to the apartment she's fashioned into her Vancouver headquarters, and he pores over maps and manuscripts and news articles with her. About two and a half hours into their debriefing, she glances over to see him bent over one of the ancient scrolls she's collected, brow furrowed in concentration, his eyes flitting over the words in rapid understanding. She gives herself a moment to appreciate the feeling of having a partner, someone who can keep up with her. She never realized in 1864 how _smart_ Damon was. He was too preoccupied with proving his feelings to her to ever bother with demonstrating his intelligence. In her more sentimental moments, she wonders if things would have been different if she'd realized what he was hiding beneath his desperate desire to please her.

Then he looks up, the gleam in his eyes telegraphing clear as day that he's figured something out, and her nostalgic musings are forgotten.

When it's over, they return to her apartment, bloody, bruised, and high on power. She has that irritating shaman's amulet wrapped around her left wrist, and they stumble into her living room laughing at their triumph. She looks him up and down, takes in his appearance, filthy, exhausted, and heart-shatteringly stunning, and slyly suggests, "Care for a shower?"

It's a shame she has to briefly obscure the rakish grin he gives her when she pulls his shirt over his head, but all around, it's a sacrifice she's willing to make.

/\/\/\

She lies on her back, her hair still damp beneath her, now undoubtedly in hopelessly tangled knots. She'll just have to shower again, but as she stretches and feels the pleasant pull of tired muscles, she thinks she doesn't so much mind.

Damon is splayed beside her, one arm thrown over his eyes to block out the light from the dreadful ceiling fixture she should have ripped down weeks ago. She watches the steady rise and fall of his bare chest for a few moments before she finally speaks.

"So where will you go next?"

He chuckles and lowers his arm from his eyes. "I am not telling you."

"Why not?" She whines, pouting attractively.

He turns his head to side to look at her. "Come on, Katherine, let me at least get to where I'm going before you track me down."

She smiles enigmatically, not a promise at all. She holds his gaze, studying him for a long minute.

"I never asked why you're not in Mystic Falls anymore."

He looks back at the ceiling, his jaw clenching ever so slightly. "Keep not asking."

She thinks about pressing him, but decides it isn't worth it. After all, they've had such a lovely evening.

"Well, next time I need someone murdered, I'll make sure to find you."

His lips quirk up in a reluctant half-grin, and the tension is broken. "You do that."

She kisses him goodbye on the front doorstep, leaning against the doorframe as she watches him descend the stairs to the sidewalk. They could have been two people parting after a first, second, third date. Maybe in some other world, they were.

* * *

He ends up in Prague, two years in Western Europe spurring him onward to the comforting familiarity of the deeper darkness and shell-shocked streets of the east.

Three days in, he hears the first mention of some socialite who's come to town and captured the hearts and headlines of the town. The waiter who mentioned her seems surprised Damon hasn't heard of her, this young countess who's commanded the attention of the city all summer. Damon assures the man that he's new in Prague and that he has little interest in such things anyway.

But over the next few weeks, he cannot seem to escape her name. The Countess Savinova is, quite literally, the talk of the town, and frankly, it's annoying as fuck. Everywhere he goes, someone is talking about where she was last night and the dress she wore and who she was dating until he wants to scream from the triviality of it all. He briefly considers killing her just to end it, but he's fairly sure that her brutal murder would only make her an even more ubiquitous topic of conversation.

Finally, he breaks down and decides to go see what all the fuss is about. She's holding court in the Alchymist Grand Hotel, and when he tries to enter the hotel bar he is halted at the doorway by a pair of stone-faced, smartly dressed men who inform him that the Countess must grant him permission to enter. Damon stands with the two stoic young men, tapping his foot impatiently and wondering why he inserted himself into this circus of opulence and self-importance. Then a short, bespectacled man approaches their silent trio and beckons Damon to follow him.

The compact fellow leads him down the carpeted path that traverses the center of the lobby bar, through to another chamber. He pauses at the doorway, the next room obscured by a red velvet curtain. His guide turns to him, nods his head in a slight bow, and announces: "The Countess Savinova," drawing the curtain aside and beckoning him inside.

When at last Damon sees her, the much-famed Countess Savinova, the princess of Prague high society, he laughs for a full minute before Katherine finally rolls her eyes and silences him with a kiss.

/\/\/\

This time around, he has to shield his eyes from the light emanating from the sumptuous chandelier affixed to the ceiling of the hotel suite Katherine has commandeered as her royal residence. He doesn't doubt that it's the most expensive suite in the place, just as he doesn't doubt that Katherine isn't paying a dime for it.

Katherine is regaling him with tales of her fame and influence in Prague. "They ended up hosting me a soiree. To celebrate my _23__rd _birthday. The mayor gave me a plaque!"

He fancies he can hear her laughter tinkling on the chandelier crystals.

"Looks like you rule this place, Katherine. It's a big step up from your usual venues."

"Well, I don't have to hide anymore, do I?" She reminds him sensibly. "No more small towns and hasty retreats."

He thinks his small town did a pretty good number on her, but if he's honest, who hasn't been somehow fucked by Mystic Falls?

"You know, I was just planning on spending the summer here, but now I'm thinking perhaps I'll stay the winter as well." A pause, then: "You could stay with me."

He barks out a laugh. "What would I do in Prague all winter with you?"

She is straddling him in an instant, the movement so fluid he barely registers the change til she's looking down at him coyly. "More of this, I should think," she retorts, bracing her palms on his chest and leaning over him temptingly.

"You make a good point," he agrees, settling his hands on her hips.

"Come on, Damon," she wheedles, "we could have so much fun. Don't you want to drive the tabloids crazy as the countess's mysterious new gentleman friend?"

He chuckles. "I'm camera shy. And we'll kill each other within a week."

"Never permanently," she teases. "Damon. _Stay_."

/\/\/\

He stays for four months.

They go to society galas and karaoke bars and drug-fueled raves together, traipsing about town in a haze of camera flashes and alcohol. They have wildly public fights, most of them pre-planned and staged, and inevitably 'reunite' in her hotel suite in proper dramatic fashion. After their third outrageously destructive make up session, Damon starts slipping the housekeeping staff extravagant tips out of guilt.

The tabloids _do_ go crazy at his sudden appearance at their favorite celebutante's side, this beautiful stranger who swept the Countess off her fashionably heeled feet. There are rumors that he's a Romanian prince, that he's the secret son of the British Prime Minister, that he murdered a girl in Paris, that he's signed a contract to play football for Portugal. When Katherine informs him on a Tuesday that they apparently eloped over the weekend, he replies that he'd like to see the ring.

They settle into a kind of rhythm, oscillating wildly between dazzling excess and banal normality. It's a strange combination, but somehow it holds.

They're lying in bed one night, Damon reading some novel while she just stares into space, idly counting the elegant curlicues that pattern the wallpaper. She has a question on the tip of her tongue, an errant thought that took root in her psyche days ago, but she can't quite spit it out. She tells herself that his answer doesn't matter either way, forcing her lips to speak before they can call her a liar.

"Do you ever see Elena when you look at me?"

His eyes shoot to her sharply. "What? No. Why would I?" The surprise in his face is so genuine that Katherine feels like a fool for even uttering the query. The tight coil of anxiety she's been harboring in the pit of her stomach for days vanishes so rapidly she feels dizzy. He holds her gaze for a minute, but when it becomes clear she has nothing else to say, he goes back to his book.

Katherine sidles next to him, places her head on his chest, and goes to sleep.

/\/\/\

At the end of January, he enters their suite with a grim look on his face and a newspaper clutched in his hand. She takes the paper from him and reads the small headline in the corner: "18 Dead in Freak Accident in Small Ukrainian Town." Three lines into the article, she reads that the villagers were 'somehow drained of their blood,' and she knows.

She looks up at him and takes in his ashen pallor, the worry in his eyes, the resolute set of his jaw. A thousand questions run through her head, things she won't speak aloud. What's his plan? What will his method be? How will he undo the damage? (_Do you want me to go with you?_)

She asks none of these things, though. She merely reaches up a hand to cup his cheek for a long moment, before uttering a quiet "Be careful." Then she goes, brushing past him to the bedroom. Even under the circumstances, she'd rather leave him than be left behind.

* * *

8 months later, she returns to her Santiago apartment to find him sitting on her front doorstep. One look at him sends a chill down her spine. His eyes are hollow, lined with stress and exhaustion and failure. He looks up at her approach, barely bothering to disguise the pleading in his gaze. She silently unlocks her door and enters, leaving it open behind her for him to follow.

She turns at the sound of the door clicking shut to find him paused awkwardly in the front entrance. It's unsettling, seeing him so hesitant, so unsure of himself. For all his crippling insecurities, Damon has always been so physically fluid, and watching him frozen and uncomfortable in her front hall scares her more than she'd care to admit. She doesn't know what happened to him, how bad it got that he gave up on his brother this time, but she can practically see the rush of thoughts in his head, the spiral of guilt and self-reproach and horror. She watches for another minute until she marches up to him, anxious to illicit some reaction to knock him out of this terrible stasis. He looks startled to be interrupted from his mental torture, looking at her in bemusement. She takes his hand, leading him upstairs like he's a lost child, and then he's kissing her, wrapping his arms around her back, hands clenching and unclenching her shirt erratically.

They stumble up to her bedroom, falling onto her bed in a graceless heap. He presses her into the bed, tangling his fingers in her hair, and she pretends not to notice the way he's trembling. But suddenly he breaks contact with her lips and buries his face in her neck, drawing in deep, shuddering breaths. She rubs his shoulders and strokes his hair, soothing him. He stays like that for a few moments before rolling off of her, curling up on his side, his back to her. She stares up at the ceiling, listening to his stuttering heartbeat, measuring his jagged breaths until they even out into the slow, shallow pulls of the deeply exhausted.

She monitors him for hours, feeling the heat of him beside her and warding off whatever nightmares may come for him tonight. But around sunrise, sleep asserts its irresistible claim upon her, and she succumbs to the relief of oblivion.

When she wakes, he is gone.

* * *

It's another three years before she sees him. When she does run into him, it's entirely by accident. She quite literally bumps into him in a bookshop in New York, and she's rarely been so caught off guard in her long life as she is when she meets Damon Salvatore's eyes in the Barnes & Noble on Fifth Avenue and finds herself speechless.

She can tell immediately that these three years have been good to him. The anguish on his face has dissipated, and his countenance has a serenity to it that she hasn't seen in a long while. She watches the initial play of embarrassment in his features before he resets himself and finally smiles at her.

"Want to get some coffee?"

She nods, and in 20 minutes they're installed in the corner booth of some irritatingly edgy boutique café filled with poets and dreamers and fools. They chat amiably for a while, like two old friends meeting after a long absence. She supposes that, in a way, that's exactly what they are. Sure, they've been through countless life and death situations together, all part of a history steeped in love and betrayal and adventure. But if there's anything that her centuries of exile have taught her, it's that there's nothing wrong with being a little average sometimes.

He's just finished telling her about the surprisingly amusing run-in he had with Jeremy Gilbert in Chicago last spring when he pauses, seemingly gathering his courage. She realizes with sudden dread that he means to thank her, express his gratitude for that night three years ago, and the thought of hearing the words aloud fills her with such abject horror that she thinks she might flee the coffee shop before he can squeak out a word.

"I saw Stefan." She blurts out, the first thing she can think of to stop this terrible train to emotional openness.

The warmth that suffuses his eyes in that moment seeps into his very being, curving his lips into a proud smile. She presses on.

"Last year. He was building houses for the homeless in New Orleans, god knows why."

Damon laughs, the affection in his voice unmistakable. "Yeah, keeps him peaceful. You know Stefan. He has to feel like he's saving the world, one useless project at a time."

Her distraction has hooked him easily, and he launches into a tale about how well Stefan is doing, how he's starting to drink from bloodbags, how he calls him every Sunday to check in. She watches him speak, his face animated and content, and thinks that the easiest way to get to this man will always be through his brother. But for once, it feels nice to do something good with it.

When he finally slows down and takes a sip of his rapidly cooling coffee, she gives him a small smile. "I'm happy for you, Damon."

He pins her with his intense gaze, holding her eyes for a suspended moment, before murmuring, "Thank you, Katherine."

She thinks that wasn't so bad after all.

He walks her to her apartment, pausing in front of her walk-up and glancing up at her latest domicile. His hands are shoved in his pockets, and he shifts restlessly from foot to foot, all kinetic energy and impatience and _Damon_.

"Do you want to come up?" she asks casually.

He pauses in consideration before shaking his head. "Better not, actually. Things to do, people to eat."

She chuckles, and they look at each other in genial camaraderie. Then he turns and heads down the sidewalk.

He stops about 10 feet away and turns back to her. "I'll be seeing you, Katherine."

She smiles at him. "You will."

He grins, nods once, and turns away again. She watches him disappear around the corner. This time, he doesn't look back.

_-fin_


End file.
